I recently purchased a Philips NP2900 and am generally impressed by the quality of the device. However, there a major issue which is spoiling my enjoyment of the device, and I don't know whether it is related to the hardware or to TMS.

The vast majority of my audio collection is in FLAC format. Much of it is classical and therefore benefits from gapless playback. Unfortunately, though, the NP2900 doesn't seem to allow for gapless playback, but instead inserts a momentary silence between tracks whilst it buffers the next one. And as if that weren't bad enough, it also cuts off a couple of seconds from the previous track! Even on tracks that don't require gapless playback, the latter issue is quite unsatisfactory.

I suspect this is a problem with the device, as XMBC seems to handle gapless playback without a problem (from the same media server), but does anyone know whether this is the case? Could it be that TMS is transcoding the FLAC files into MP3 or causing the issue in some other way?

Another problem I have with the device (which clearly doesn't have anything to do with TMS) is that it takes forever to buffer Internet radio, and it is impossible to do anything â€” even turn the device off â€” during that time. Given that it automatically starts playing/buffering the previously-selected station when it is switched back on, this can be quite tiresome. Has anyone managed to find a solution to this?

I do hope that Philips addresses these issues in a future firmware release, but having read the comments of others on this forum I find that sadly unlikely. Any help would be gratefully received!